Electronic OtherRealms #20 Spring, 1988 Part 12 No Prisoners! Reviews by Laurie Sefton Copyright 1988 by Laurie Sefton Reviewed in this Issue Cyteen [*****] by C.J. Cherryh Warner Books, 688pp, $18.95, May, 1988, 0-446-51428 P=G+E Expressed phenotype is the result of the genotype and the environmental influence. A simple equation that tries to explain a complicated issue. Perhaps a better way of writing this equation would be: P= pG+qE Where p+q=1.0. The "p" part of this equation is often referred to as the "heritability" of a specific phenotype, the percentage of expression that can be accounted for soley by genetic material. For example, the heritability of the specific gravity of a white potato is 0.7. So the specific gravity of any given white potato is due to 70% genetic and 30% environmental influence. It's easy to determine the specific gravity of a white potato. In humans, it's also fairly easy to approximate the heritability of something like red hair or blue eyes. Note that I said "approximate." The environment has a nasty habit of throwing biological monkey wrenches into the works. So when we move away from traits like red hair and blue eyes, and move into expresed intelligence, environment starts to play a much larger role. If we wanted a human being with an expressed intelligence in the 99% percentile, and an overriding interest in genetics, we'd have to have complete control of the environment -- if we knew what that environment was. This is one of the issues addressed in C.J. Cherryh's latest book, Cyteen. Cyteen is the home of Reseune, which produces phenotypes to order. Reseune is the home of Ariane Emory. Ariane Emory is a brilliant geneticist, a genius at producing "tapes", the environment that produces the phenotypes from the genotypes, a consummate politician, an iron-willed director, and a cold hearted cynical bitch. Just as the "tapes" control the "azi", the human product of her laboratories, does she control her underlings. She is admired, feared and loathed by those beneath her. Enter Jordan, Justin and Grant. Justin is the parental replicate of Jordan, both are gifted developmental psychologists. Grant is an "azi" brother of Justin, taken from the same genetic material as Justin, given a few genetic tweaks to keep him from being a perfect replicate, and subjected to the immediate conditioning that all "azi's undergo from birth. "Azi"s may range in intelligence and abilities; after all, you don't want a soldier as a cook. But they are all alike in one regard; they need the constant reassurance of their "citizen" keepers. They have little to no creativity beyond what has been "programmed" into them. "Azi"s are the ultimate progeny of Brave New World. Jordan, Justin and Grant find themselves entangled in Ariane's web of threats, bribes, and blackmail. Ultimately, Justin and Grant have nervous breakdowns, and Jordan is sent into exile for Ariane's murder. This is not the end of the book -- this all occurs in the first fifth of the book. Now the fun begins. Reseune, and the whole of Cyteen have a political structure that falls somewhere in between the Daley democratic machine in Chicago and Byzantine Constantinople. The loss of Ariane Emory would be political suicide for Reseune, so Reseune recreates Ariane; this time with a slightly more tractable nature -- they hope. The rest of the book parallels the development of young Ariane with the development of Grant and Justin. Ariane as she moves through a pre-arranged environment, including the cloning, training and introduction of her "azi" bodyguards; and Grant and Justin and they both move away from their "programming" -- Grant as an "azi" and Justin as his genetic father's replicate. In addition to this are the sidelights of political dealing, and the nagging reports of a "lost" azi/citizen colony; who, being found after 70 years are longer discernable as azi or citizen. They're simply human. Add this to the revelation that pehaps Jordan didn't kill the original Ariane Emory, and you have a multi-dimensional epic. Cyteen is neither a quick nor easy read; Cherryh has included so many subplots and tangential plotlines that I had to pay close attention ot the book to keep from missing an important point. It is also a disturbing book; the azi's are treated with no more regard to their inherent humanity than one would treat a highly excitable thoroughbred horse. While their intelligence and abilities meet and exceed those of their citizen "keepers," they are nothing more than expensive lab animals. They are the ultimate differentiation of a slave class; they are the same sex, race, and species of their captors. Their only difference is in their developmental environment. Cyteen is a thought-provoking study of society as well as one of the best science fictions novels of the year. Don't wait for this one to come out in paperback -- you won't be disappointed. Letters to OtherRealms The Kindly Ones Melissa Scott Boston, MA I'd like to correct a problem with the Science Fiction Book Club edition of my novel The Kindly Ones. Due to an error of miscommunications, both the publicity flyer and the dust jacket of the Book club Edition -- and most recently the nomination notice for the Book Club's book fo the year award -- refer the to novel's narrator, Trey maturin, as "she." I did not specify Maturin's gender at any poing in the book, nor do I wish to do so. Rather, I intended to leave that decision to each individual reader, in the hope that this would allow people to examine the reasons behind their assumptions. Marooned in Realtime typo Wayne A. Throop dg-rtp!throopw@mcnc.org There appear to be two errors in the electronic OtherRealms version of my review of Marooned in Realtime. First, I mistakenly separated "realtime" into two words, which Vinge did not. I thought I had sent you a correction, but my archives show no trace of this, sigh. Sorry about that. Second, the paragraph about how Wil feels about Marta's death (the one concluding "Someone must die for this") was indented in the original version I sent you, because it was a quotation from the book. The format of the electronic version obscures this point, and I wouldn't want to appear to claim Vinge's text as mine. -- To err is human -- to blame the other guy is even more human. -- Solomon Short (quoted by David Gerrold) Well, one small, sort of, nit Tom Galloway GALLOWAY@CLSEPF51.BITNET Oops. There is one small not-quite-a-nit. In Dan'l's review of Bova's Kinsman, he notes that a) he hasn't read the 1976 Millennium which makes up a good part of the book, and b) Kinsman is heavily SDI propagandized. Well, I haven't read Kinsman yet, since I refuse to pay hardcover prices for something with a binding like that used by the SFBC, so I don't know if the book really plays up SDI propaganda. But in Millennium, the SDI concept of laser satellites played a major and prominent role in the book. And as noted, this was published by in 1976, when SDI was definitely not a political issue. [Dan'l Replies: True...but it most certainly was not called "SDI" at that time, as it is from early in "Kinsman" in The Kinsman Saga. I presume this to be a revision from the original editions of the books, as it would have been simply impossible (excepting the microscopic chance of Bova happening to use a term which Reagan would later "invent"). There is no particular plot reason to be calling the project "SDI"; I conclude that Bova made the change to align the books with modern SDI propaganda/terminology.] Availability of books Fred Bals bals@nutmeg.dec.com Although I support the idea of a quarterly rather than monthly OtherRealms for all the reasons we've discussed and which you cite, I'll note one problem that I've run into. Alan's review of Steakley's Armor sparked my interest enough to search out the book. I can't find it anywhere. Now, admittedly, southern New Hampshire isn't a cultural center at least as sf isn't concerned, but we do have a couple of decent chains with well-stocked sf shelves. But I suspect that a first novel by an unknown writer with little or no publicity attached to it had a shelf life of only a few months at best. And that runs into the second problem, which we've discussed before -- inconsistent publishing info from your reviewers. Without the issue at hand, I'm pretty sure that Alan didn't note the publication date of Armor (though he did list ISBN and publisher). Anyway, I'm going to have to find out how long ago Armor was issued, and then see if any of the specialty shops in the Boston area still have it. But I won't be surprised if they don't -- especially if the book was issued a year or more ago. So, two problems: One, as you acknowledge, is the lag time between a book's issuance and its review in OtherRealms. The problem is exacerbated when the review is of a lesser-known work, the acknowledged area you want your reviewers to concentrate upon. By the time a respective issue of OtherRealms appears, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the book has disappeared, as seems to have happened with Armor. I don't anything that can be done about this. Perhaps as your reputation among publishers grows, you'll have enough pre-publication copies in to be able to beat this. But I think right now it somewhat hampers the usefulness of OtherRealms for people who want to find new reading material. [The time lag is a real problem, and one that delayed the switch to quarterly for a number of months. Unfortunately, the reality of publishing and bookselling means that some books, especially paperbacks, are gone. The Bay Area is blessed with a number of good specialty stores with people are work hard at keeping their stock up. Not everyone is that lucky, of course. But given the limitations of my publishing schedule and the realities of publishing, I'm not sure what to do about this. One thing I'd recommend is tracking down a specialty store that you can mail order from for those books that are impossible to find otherwise. One store that I recommend for this would be Change of Hobbit in Santa Monica, at (213) Great-SF. I'm sure there are many others around the country. In fact, if you know of a specialty store that has a strong stock and does mail order, let me know (or better yet, have the store contact me) and I'll give them a free plug. If I get enough of a response, I'll put together a list of specialty shops for regular publication in OtherRealms] Second problem, which I think can be handled, is the inconsistent publication info. This has improved from previous issues tremendously. But I'd recommend -- and include me in this rule -- that you let your reviewers know that you expect that all reviews include all the standard publishing info and a rating based on your scale. If that information isn't included, then the review will be automatically rejected until it is. A few instances of you enforcing that rule, and I think you won't have a problem. [A lot of the missing information is coming from older reviews that I've had stockpiled. They're cleaned out as of this issue, and future reviews will have as complete publication information as I can get. The minimum set I am going to require from now on is Title, Author(s), Publisher and ISBN. I also want to see publication (or copyright) dates, pages, and cloth/paper/trade designation. I'll be supplementing this with information out of the long delayed book index database when I get it fully functional, since right now I don't have an easy way to look up a book and get the missing information] Let's see: I respect your opinion as always, but think you missed the march on Watchmen (which is, btw, only Watchmen, not The Watchmen, sez nit-picking Bals). You make a good point that Watchmen will probably not fare very well in the Hugos due to its inacessability -- at least as compared to The Dark Knight Returns. But I personally consider that a failing on the part of sf fans, rather than on the work. Maus, for instance, has done extremely well in the mainstream, even given that on first glance it might appear to only be a "funny-animal" book. Would that fandom could have as a collective open mind as the people they label "mundanes." Although I realize that your review of Watchmen was probably somewhat constricted for space reasons, I think you do it a disservice by implying that it's not much more than a parody of superhero conventions. Nor do I think you need a familiarity with the Charlton characters (or comic books as a whole, for that matter) in order to follow the book In fact, in discussions about the series here at DEC, I actually found that most people hadn't realized the Watchmen characters were based on the Charlton heroes. Rather than Watchmen parodying superheroes, I think what Moore does is to realistically extrapolate what would happen if masked vigilantes and at least one super-powered being actually existed. In many ways, as the title's reference to the Juvenal quotation implies, Watchmen is a cautionary tale in the best tradition of science fiction, dealing with the dangers of absolution power and the ends justifying the means. I still consider it the most impressive science fiction work I read during 86-87. You generated less of a furor than I expected from HHF #1. The general consensus on the con seemed to follow your opinions, and indeed were reflected by those DECcies who attended. Not as a complaint, but as a matter of curiousity, what happened to the paragraph breaks in my review of Mindplayers? Did they get stripped out somehow, or did you eliminate them to get the review on one page? It kinda made me appear to have been on speed when I wrote it (gee, gonzo reviewing). [Actually, I felt the Mindplayers review had that special, cyberpunkish feel to it. Seriously, there was some kind of computer glitch that I didn't catch until too late. MacDuff got hungry and ate all the internal formatting of the piece during layout, and by the time I noticed, the deed was done and I couldn't go back to the source to see where the paragraph markers were. Steps have been taken to make sure it doesn't happen again, but with the wonders of modern day computers, I'm sure something even more amusing will happen as soon as my guard is down.] Subscriptions OtherRealms is available for the usual bribes and trades: a copy of your zine, submissions, letters, comments or artwork. If you don't want to be a part of OtherRealms, you can subscribe for one year (four issues) for $8.50. A single issue is $2.50. OtherRealms is available at Future Fantasy Bookstore in Palo Alto, CA. People in the publishing industry can qualify for a free subscription. Please contact me for details. Electronic OtherRealms An electronic, text-only version of OtherRealms is available on many different computer networks and bulletin boards. On the ARPAnet, BITNET, CSNet and UUCP networks, send E-mail to chuq@sun.Com to be placed on the mailing list. For people with access to USENET, OtherRealms is available in rec.mag.otherrealms. It is also available on the Delphi Timesharing service. Submissions OtherRealms publishes articles about book length Science Fiction and Fantasy. The primary focus is reviews of books, especially the newer and lesser known authors that might otherwise be missed in the crowded shelves of your bookstore. Other material about books and the authors that create them are welcome, including bibliographies and interviews. Authors are invited to write articles for the Behind the Scenes series, where the background and research that went into a book can be discussed. Please query on interviews, Behind the Scenes articles, and longer works. Reviews should be sent in their entirety. OtherRealms does not publish poetry, fiction, movie or fannish material. 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If something has happened to you that you want the word to know about, I want to know about it. Art I'm always in need of good genre art, from small clip-art pieces to front and back covers. Anything with a genre flavor is welcome here! I prefer reproductions and photocopies to originals. Those Funny Runes The gobbledygook attached to the names of OtherRealms contributors are addresses. Computers use them to figure out how to get to another computer to pass along a message. If you don't understand them, don't feel bad -- neither do many computers, and they're the experts. Believe it or not, it does work. Most of the time. The Details OtherRealms is published using a Macintosh computer, a Laserwriter Plus, Ready, Set, Go! 4.0, Microsoft Word 3.01, SuperPaint, and other pieces of software. The body typeface is Palatino 10/11, the Headers use Bookman Bold and Zapf Chancery in various sizes. Is This Your Last Issue? The number on your mailing label is the issue your OtherRealms subscription dies. Negative numbers indicate complimentary subscriptions. If it is zero, this is the only issue you'll see untilI decide to send you another (if you hate leaving things up to chance, do something!). Don't wait for me to tell you to renew, do it today! Rates will go up soon, thanks to the Post Office. Lock in current rates! Book Ratings in OtherRealms All books are rated with the following guidelines. Most books published should fall into the range [***-] to [***+]. Ratings are modifed with - or + to show a half step, with [***-] subjectively better than [**+]. [*****] One of the best books of the year [****] A very good book, Above average [***] A good book. Recommended [**] Flawed, but has its moments [*] Not recommended [] To be avoided OtherRealms Science Fiction and Fantasy In Review Editor & Publisher Chuq Von Rospach Associate Editor Laurie Sefton Contributing Editors Charles de Lint Dan'l Danehy-Oakes Alan Wexelblat OtherRealms #20 Spring, 1988 Copyright 1988 by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights Reserved One time rights have been acquired from the contributors. All rights are hereby assigned to the contributors. OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic edition may be distributed or reproduced in its entirety as long as all copyrights, author and publication information remain intact.No individual article may be reprinted, reproduced or republished in any way without the express permission of the author. OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) by: Chuq Von Rospach 35111-F Newark Blvd. Suite 255 Newark, CA 94560. Usenet: chuq@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ CompuServe: 73317,635 GENie: C.VONROSPAC